Bad News for the Highly Intelligent
There are advantages to being smart. People who do well on IQ tests tend to be more successful in the classroom and the workplace. They also tend to live longer, healthier lives, and are less likely to experience negative life events.
In a study, Ruth Karpinski and her colleagues carried out a study on the members of Mensa, a high IQ society. The study covered mood disorders and anxiety disorders. Respondents were asked to report whether they had ever suffered from each disorder. The researchers compared the percentage of those who reported disorder to the national average and found that Mensa's highly intelligent members were more likely to suffer from a range of serious disorders.
To explain their findings, Karpinski and his team bring up the hyper brain and hyper body theory. This theory holds that, for all of its advantages, being highly intelligent is associated with psychological and physiological "overexcitabilities", or OE. This can include anything from an astonishing sound to conflict with another person. According to the theory, OEs are more common in highly intelligent people. A highly intelligent person may overanalyze a disapproving comment made by a boss, imagining negative outcomes that simply wouldn't occur to someone less intelligent.
The results of this study must be interpreted (诠释) cautiously. Showing that a disorder is more common in a sample of people with high IQs than in the general population doesn't prove that high intelligence is the cause of the disorder. All the same, the findings set the stage for research that promises to cast new light on the link between intelligence and health. One possibility is that associations between intelligence and health outcomes reflect pleiotropy (基因多效性), which occurs when a gene influences seemingly unrelated characteristics. In a 2015 study, Rosalind Arden and her colleagues concluded that the association between IQ and living longer is mostly explained by genetic factors. From a practical standpoint, this research may lead to insights about how to improve people's psychological and physical well-being.
A. Now there's some bad news for those smart people.
B. There is already some evidence to suggest that this is the case.
C. It is an unusually strong reaction to an environmental threat or abuse.
D. Scientists did many researches to understand the reasons behind the advantages.
E. That may cause the body's stress response, which may make the person even more anxious.
F. It's also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ.
G. They found that the differences between the respondents were seen for mood and anxiety disorders.
